March 29-April 17, 2025 with Megan Edwards Crewe & local guide Wangda Tenzing
A visit to Bhutan, "land of the thunder dragon", still feels like a journey to a remote and slightly mystical place. Despite new roads, a growing network of hydroelectric plants and an expanding airport, despite plentiful truck traffic (on some roads) and Wi-Fi being available in a surprising number of places, the fact that only a limited number of tourists a year are permitted to visit -- added to the fact that we go to many places where most tourists do not -- means that the country is refreshingly unspoiled, with vast tracts of wilderness still cloaking innumerable hills and mountains between scattered towns and villages. The Bhutanese are a warm and friendly people, and our experience was greatly enhanced by the tour's visit to several cultural sites, including dzongs at Punakha and Trongsa.
Our adventure started within sight of the beautiful Paro airport, when we found an Ibisbill on the river literally right across the street from the terminal building. We watched it preening and foraging among the rounded river stones, along with a confiding Brown Dipper, our first Plumbeous Redstarts, some White Wagtails (the distinctive local subspecies "alboides") and a couple of well-camouflaged River Lapwings. It took a bit more time -- and a bit of wrangling on my part -- to entice a couple of Black-tailed Crakes into view northwest of town; fortunately, we had Black Bulbuls and Gray-backed Shrikes to entertain us while we waited for the crakes to make an appearance. We were up before dawn again the following morning, heading up Chele La -- the highest driveable point in the country. The birding started in the pre-dawn half-light, when we spotted (barely!) our first Satyr Tragopan right beside the bus. As we climbed higher and the light rose, we found White-collared Blackbirds perched on treetops and a half-dozen Yellow-billed Blue-Magpies swarming through the bushes. At least eight Blood Pheasants (mostly in pairs) scurried along the roadside or stood sentinel on concrete barriers. But the top prize was probably our four Himalayan Monals: three males (one flying, two others along the roadside looking gorgeous, their iridescent colors shifting with every step) and one female, which spent long minutes scratching in the dirt at the summit. A dozen or so Snow Pigeons rummaged for seeds near the female monal, and we found a lone lingering Red-throated Thrush (a winter visitor to Bhutan) in a leafless tree nearby. After our first picnic breakfast, with a zillion colorful prayer flags fluttering nearby and a cloudless blue sky arching overhead, we carried on down the road for a bit. Mixed tit flocks (Coal, Gray-crested, and Rufous-vented), singing Himalayan Bluetails, perched-up Southern Nutcrackers and our first Oriental Turtle-Doves were among our finds. White-winged and Spot-winged grosbeaks in quick succession allowed some good comparisons and we watched Blue-fronted Redstarts hunt from rocks and tree stumps. A Mountain Hawk-Eagle swept in to land in a conifer on the far side of the summit, and we encountered the first of our many, many Yaks. After a picnic lunch, we were off to Thimphu, with a few roadside stops (a little Red Crossbill flock foraging at eye level, and a hunting pair of Eurasian Kestrels) along the way.
We left our hotel early again the next morning -- though not as early as we'd hoped, as our bus had been blocked in! We headed up Dochu La, reaching the summit (with its crown of 108 chortens celebrating victory over Assamese insurgents) in time to do a bit of birding before another picnic breakfast. An Eurasian Sparrowhawk flap-flap-glided high above the forest. A big flock of Stripe-throated Yuhinas swarmed through the trees, with an even bigger group of White-throated Laughingthrushes playing follow-the-leader across the road nearby. A cloud of White-throated Needletails and our first Himalayan Swiftlets swirled overhead. Singing Whistler's Warblers made us work hard for a look as they moved furtively through the underbrush. A showy pair of Black-faced Laughingthrushes, our first Rufous-gorgeted Flycatcher, a trio of Ashy Drongos, and two Yellow-billed Blue-Magpies right around our picnic site made it hard to concentrate on eating! Replete, we headed down to the Royal Botanical Park for the rest of the morning, where a loop trail brought us a number of new species. Two salmon-pink Eurasian Jays played hide and seek among some of the bigger trees. An inquisitive mixed flock of Green-tailed Sunbirds, Chestnut-crowned Warbler, Yellow-browed and Green-backed tits, White-tailed Nuthatches and Whiskered Yuhinas checked out our mob tape. Rufous Sibias and Hoary-throated Barwings gobbled berries while a Long-tailed Minivet hunted from high branches. And a clown car's worth of Striated Laughingthrushes kept coming and coming and coming through the trees as we neared the end of our walk. We finished the day at the Punakha Dzong, the immense Buddhist fortress that sits at the confluence of the Po Chhu and the Mo Chhu. There, Wangda gave us our first crash course in Bhutanese history as we wandered among the highly decorated buildings.
The next morning found us along the Po Chhu (the Father River), where the mix of agricultural fields, scrubby gullies and forested hillsides brought a nice variety of birds. A single Bar-headed Goose stood, blinking but motionless, along the riverside, not far from a little group of Ruddy Shelducks. A female Common Merganser spent much time underwater as she hunted. A single Red-wattled Lapwing stood in a harvested rice field, a Crested Bunting sang from a utility wire and a couple of Common Hoopoes flapped past in a flurry of black and white wings. A handful of Rusty-cheeked Scimitar-Babblers worked through dried vegetation along one switchback, occasionally perching nicely in the open, and a couple of Himalayan Prinias did the same, showing their distinctively long tails to perfection. Oriental Magpie-Robins and Eurasian Tree Sparrows swarmed around a farm entrance, with a couple of Gray Treepies in trees around the buildings. Up the hill from a road construction crew, a male Blue-capped Rock-Thrush poured his song into the morning and our admiration of a pair of Eurasian Kestrels drew the bemused attention of a nearby monk. A Gray-hooded Warbler sang from twigs just over the road, and a half dozen Indian White-eyes flitted along a scruffy hillside. And who will soon forget the thrilling views we got of the Pallas's Fish-Eagle when it left its distant treetop and flew straight towards us, eventually flapping right over our heads?! After breakfast along the river, we wound our way back through Punakha, adding a male Tufted Duck and a couple of Eurasian Coots on the water while a male Blue Rock-Thrush cavorted on a rooftop nearby.
From Punakha, we headed south and east, birding our way along increasingly narrower and more winding roads as we neared Darachu. We made a few roadside stops en route -- particularly for lunch, where we found our first Blue-throated Barbets, Chestnut-headed Bee-eaters and Common Tailorbirds in the trees around our picnic site. Further along, we stopped again for a quartet of White-crested Laughingthrushes, which made us work hard for a look as they skulked through thick vegetation down the hill from where we stood. A Hen Harrier soaring over the road and a quartet of very cooperative Black-throated Tits finished out our day. We rolled up to Darachu to find our tented camp all set up and waiting, thanks to our outstanding crew. The omnipresent calls of a Large Hawk-Cuckoo ("brain fever, Brain Fever, BRAIN FEVER!") echoing from the surrounding forest and a Gray Nightjar hunting overhead as we gathered dinner made for a good start to our stay. I was dismayed to find that work had begun on a road expansion there -- early stages of a project that will turn the quiet back road into a busy four-lane highway. Forest on both sides of the road had been hacked down, with piles of dying trees strewn along the roadside. This destruction proved to be a mixed bag; while some species undoubtedly fled the chaos, others were drawn to the heaped vegetation. Blue-winged, Bhutan and Chestnut-crowned laughingthrushes, Red-faced Liocichla and Brownish-flanked Bush-warblers (all often furtive skulkers) rummaged through the tangles, making them much, much easier to find than they typically are! Gray-winged Blackbirds bounced along grassy edges, and an unexpected Tibetan Blackbird (a winter visitor normally gone by the time of our tour) posed nicely on an eye-level branch.
Once we'd finished breakfast, we started down the road towards the lowlands, birding as we descended. Some 40 White-throated Needletails quartered low over the roadside fields, with a pair of distinctively square-winged Black Eagles working only slightly higher. A Crested Goshawk fluttered past in a display flight, its white undertail coverts fluffed eye-catchingly over its uppertail. Mixed flocks swirled along the roadside, with Golden Babblers and Yellow-throated Fulvettas mingling with warblers, flycatchers, fantails and Rufous Sibias. Late in the toasty afternoon, we ventured to the Gelephu sewage ponds, though acres and acres of abandoned rice fields. Near the entrance, a Citrine Wagtail waggled its way across the surface of a settling pond, on a crust that didn't bear thinking about. More than a dozen wary Lesser Whistling-Ducks lined the edges of other ponds, a handful of Common and Green sandpipers patrolled the concrete banks, a Fulvous-breasted Woodpecker surveyed its domain from a dead snag, and a couple of Oriental Cuckooshrikes hunted from scruffy trees around the site's margins. As we departed, we put the hazy, blood-red setting sun in the scope, which made its myriad sunspots clearly visible. A walk near our hotel before we left the next morning brought us a few lowland species we didn't find elsewhere. A Jungle Babbler preened on a telephone pole and a Coppersmith Barbet sang from a nearby treetop. A Greater Raquet-tailed Drongo shouted challenges and made a few swooping sallies from a wooded backyard while little parties of Indian Pied Starlings flapped past. A couple of Thick-billed Warblers flicking through a weedy field were another surprise write-in -- and took us a while to puzzle out!
From Gelephu, we worked our way eastwards into the hills around Tingtibi. While Wangda dealt with the Geleg Zam checkpoint paperwork, we enjoyed a couple of close Crested Kingfishers from the nearby bridge. Further along, we spotted our first Great Hornbill moving through the trees and found a pair of eye-level Rufous-necked Hornbills perched beside the road. Asian Emerald Cuckoos glistened in treetops, Kalij Pheasants and an Eurasian Hoopoe rummaged along roadsides and a flock of a dozen Mountain Imperial-Pigeons winged past. Square-tailed Drongo-Cuckoos sang their "I'm a drongo-cuckoo", Bronzed and Lesser Racquet-tailed drongos sallied from high branches, and little gangs of Long-tailed Sibias flashed white wing-spots as they followed each other across the road. And Ultramarine and Pale Blue flycatchers and Small Niltavas reminded us that not all flycatchers are boring little gray-brown things! Our camp in Tingtibi was right across the road from a huge patch of bamboo, which we birded on our foggy early morning there, adding White-bellied Scimitar-Babbler and Black-chinned Yuhina through the murk. A group of Indian photographers with their guide was birding there too, and we could hear their speaker blasting as we wandered along the road. They later showed us some fine pictures of various parrotbills and White-headed Babblers that we never saw, despite trying in the same places. Frustrating! A bit later, as we ate our picnic breakfast back at the camp, the site's owner started shouting that there was a White-bellied Heron on the river. We scurried down to the road and got everybody a look in the scope before it flew ponderously off upriver. A worthy interruption indeed!
Other critters of interest:
Mammals:
Assamese Macaque (Macaca assamensis)
Golden Langur (Trachypithecus geei)
Capped Langur (Trachypithecus pileatus)
Nepal Gray Langur (Semnopithecus schistaceus)
Royle's Pika (Ochotona roylii)
Irawaddy Squirrel (Callosciurus pygerythrus)
Himalayan Striped Squirrel (Tamiops mcclellandii)
Orange-bellied Himalayan Squirrel (Dremomys lokriah)
Eurasian Wild Pig (Sus scrofa)
Southern Red Muntjac (Muntiacus muntjak)
Herps:
King Cobra (Ophiophagus hannah)
Common House Gecko (Hemidactylus frenatus)
You can see my complete trip report on eBird at this link: https://ebird.org/tripreport/346458
You can see my iNaturalist report of non-avian taxa at this link: https://uk.inaturalist.org/projects/bhutan-2025
-- Megan